Recommended Posts

Hello all :D

My first post here, but i've been following the vanishing point since the beginning.

With puzzle box 2 complete we all now have 18 pieces of the white boxes puzzle, and i've already seen other screen-shots of those pieces, but i figured why not take that a step further!? We have most of the key pieces so why not try and reconstruct the rest!

I had to create a few pieces from scratch but it hangs together quite well, the original pieces are black with my added ones in gray. Here it is...

post-196034-1168795418.jpg

... not be thought of as complete though as there is bound to be more to it, perhaps a word on a "plaque" bottom-centre :wacko:

Anyway thought i'd share that and hopefully hear some thoughts & opinions :)

I still think it's funny the kinds of things people fixate on. :)

Anyway, something about Loki's story sounded very familiar to me. Then I realized why ... she stole it. It's actually a rather infamous hack (prank) played on the incoming President at MIT many years back.

So what's the significance of that? Is she trying to clue us in on which school she got into? Probably not, while the Physics major might play into it, the rest aren't really MIT's strengths. She has to have known that someone would recognize the story as stolen (we are the "smartest people on the planet", after all), so was she counting on that? Was she trying to point out how stupid Microsoft's recruiters were?

Or is it a bit more insidious than that? The phrase "trickster" has popped up more than once, and doesn't necessarily have a positive connotation. At the end of the story, she reveals to the recruiter that she's stolen his watch. I'm starting to wonder if our purpose is a bit more of a challenge than we thought? Maybe Loki is planning to steal something (or already has!) and finding Loki at her Vanishing Point is actually the challenge. We have to catch her before she gets away with it.

Sorry everyone ... sometimes it's helpful to sort out these thoughts "out loud".

Oh, and JohnY79 ... we'd already figured that much out. There's quite a bit of speculation in the Wiki and at UnFiction on what the symbols in the crest mean. Seems a little sparse to me, so hopefully there's a little more detail coming, but we'll see how it goes.

Edited by SuperRob
Don't know if anyone's still reading this this morning, and I'm not sure if there's any significance behind this, but at the lokivanishes.com site, all the text is selectable, as compared to the vanishingpointgame.com site where none of the text is selectable. I'm guessing lokivanishes is not with the game (if that wasn't already decided).

Vanishingpointgame.com is written in Flash, lokivanishes.com is just written in HTML

That is why the text is selectable on lokivanishes

Craig

Holy cow, talk about swag.

Choose to experience suborbital space: sign up today for a flight aboard Rocketplane?s XP launch vehicle and secure your place on the Founder?s Flight Team for $250,000

250k?????????????????

The Lorelei

The Lorelei is both a rock on the Rhine River, located between Switzerland and the North Sea, and a legendary siren-like creature who lives on the rock and lures sailors to their death. The Lorelei has been the site of many accidents, as it marks the narrowest point in the river, which is difficult and treacherous to navigate due to a strong current and shallow river bed. These accidents are no doubt the inspiration for the legend of a maiden whose song and appearance distracts sailors from their course.

The origin of the name Lorelei is the source of some dispute. It is either derived from Old German lureln and ley, meaning "murmuring rock," or luren and ley, meaning "lurking rock." The first etymology refers to a murmuring sound that can be heard in the vicinity of the Lorelei as a result of the strong currents, a waterfall, and the echoing effect of the rock wall. This sound, although difficult to hear today as a result of urbanization, may also have given rise to tales of a singing maiden on the rock.

The maiden known as Lorelei has her origin in German folklore, where she is often portrayed as a Nixe, a fish-tailed creature similar to the Greek idea of the siren. Legend has it that the Lorelei was once a human maiden who sat on the rock waiting for her lover to return. When he never showed up, she threw herself into the river in despair. Ever since, the Lorelei has sat on the rock combing her hair and singing plaintively, causing sailors to wreck their vessels upon the rocks in revenge for her lover's betrayal.

Perhaps the most famous account of the mythical Lorelei appears in Heinrich Heine's 19th century poem Die Lorelei. One of the most beloved pieces of German poetry, it has been set to music about 25 different times. Older versions of the tale, first appearing in literature around the 13th century, tell of a mythical treasure buried in the rock and guarded by the elf queen Holda, who could drive men mad with her look or her song.

The Lorelei

Perhaps the most famous account of the mythical Lorelei appears in Heinrich Heine's 19th century poem Die Lorelei. One of the most beloved pieces of German poetry, it has been set to music about 25 different times. Older versions of the tale, first appearing in literature around the 13th century, tell of a mythical treasure buried in the rock and guarded by the elf queen Holda, who could drive men mad with her look or her song.

Treasure filled rock = murmering rock = this game? but i thought the murmering rock was cancelled? and loki is a mermaid (this gets weirder and weirder)

The following is the poem "Die Lorelei", by Heinrich Heine.

I cannot explain the sadness

That's fallen on my breast.

An old, old fable haunts me,

And will not let me rest.

The air grows cool in the twilight,

And softly the Rhine flows on;

The peak of a mountain sparkles

Beneath the setting sun.

More lovely than a vision,

A girl sits high up there;

Her golden jewelry glistens,

She combs her golden hair.

With a comb of gold she combs it,

And sings an evensong;

The wonderful melody reaches

A boat, as it sails along.

The boatman hears, with an anguish

More wild than was ever known;

He's blind to the rocks around him;

His eyes are for her alone.

--At last the waves devoured

The boat, and the boatman's cry;

And this she did with her singing,

The golden Lorelei.

I'll explain. Lorelei is apparently a Nixe, a siren, who lives at the "murmuring rock", the lorelei. From my previous post: "Legend has it that the Lorelei was once a human maiden who sat on the rock waiting for her lover to return. When he never showed up, she threw herself into the river in despair. Ever since, the Lorelei has sat on the rock combing her hair and singing plaintively, causing sailors to wreck their vessels upon the rocks in revenge for her lover's betrayal."

Might this have something to do with her statement "The Murmuring Rock project is on hold, indefinitely"?

EDIT: Maybe this is an allusion to the poem. We are the boatmen, being led on by Loki (Lorelei)?

Also, the shield we got from the metapuzzle pieces looks like a coat of arms. Germany (where the Rhine & the Lorelei are located) is known for its many MANY coat of arms. I tried looking for that particular one with the feathers and the hook (?), but nothing so far. But that doesn't say much, because there are HUNDREDS of German coat of arms, one for each town. So we could be looking at a particular town. I guess we'll have to wait for the rest of the puzzle?

All this myth stuff will probably be very useful in the last puzzle box. Reason being the puzzles have seemed to followed Loki's four major field of study. Physics(science), performing arts(magic), next will probably be history, and then folklore.

Anyways, I tried looking for coats of arm that have a grapnel on them and came up empty. Even finding and explanation for the grapnel was difficult but it was explained on a different forum and there was a link on a previous post here.

Also, the shield we got from the metapuzzle pieces looks like a coat of arms. Germany (where the Rhine & the Lorelei are located) is known for its many MANY coat of arms. I tried looking for that particular one with the feathers and the hook (?), but nothing so far. But that doesn't say much, because there are HUNDREDS of German coat of arms, one for each town. So we could be looking at a particular town. I guess we'll have to wait for the rest of the puzzle?

What i found:

...interesting?

post-195821-1168800390.jpg

I found this while looking for a coat of arms with a grapnel:

Just past the rugged Hudson heights of Breakneck, Crownest, and Storm King Mountain the river opens into a lovely inland sea containing the island...After tying up their boat at a large unloading dock they crossed a moat spanned by a drawbridge and passed under a portcullis crowned by the Bannerman coat of arms carved in stone. The coat of arms had been designed by Bannerman and included a grapnel symbolizing the grappling he used to do in New York Harbor for old anchors and pieces of chain.

Found this on a biography about Frank Bannerman (a famous gun merchant). His castle is located on Pollepel Island, on the Hudson river.

http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/m...1974_5_52.shtml

Can anyone find a picture of his coat of arms?

I know someone stated it a little earlier but i think people missed it. In the postcards puzzle the train picture is now a lady sitting in a chair with lines across her midsection.

Maybe some of the previous puzzles are also different?

EDIT: Nevermind. They probably just figured that the disappearing train magician was too obscure or hard to find (after all, I don't think we even found it. We just guessed the word "coins", because of the 4 names we already got).

I found this while looking for a coat of arms with a grapnel:

Just past the rugged Hudson heights of Breakneck, Crownest, and Storm King Mountain the river opens into a lovely inland sea containing the island...After tying up their boat at a large unloading dock they crossed a moat spanned by a drawbridge and passed under a portcullis crowned by the Bannerman coat of arms carved in stone. The coat of arms had been designed by Bannerman and included a grapnel symbolizing the grappling he used to do in New York Harbor for old anchors and pieces of chain.

Found this on a biography about Frank Bannerman (a famous gun merchant). His castle is located on Pollepel Island, on the Hudson river.

http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/m...1974_5_52.shtml

Can anyone find a picture of his coat of arms?

Here are pictues of the castle along with what appears to be the coat of arms....at least...what used to be the coat of arms.

http://www.hudsonvalleyruins.org/rinaldi/bannerman.htm

Maybe some of the previous puzzles are also different?

EDIT: Nevermind. They probably just figured that the disappearing train magician was too obscure or hard to find (after all, I don't think we even found it. We just guessed the word "coins", because of the 4 names we already got).

I think we only had 3

(Couldn't figure out one for the horse that would fit)

And can somebody help me, i can't get the Answer houdini to work in the seven card monte one to work. And yes i have tried to log off and back on twice, it just says other

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Posts

    • Kdenlive 26.04.2 by Razvan Serea Kdenlive is an acronym for KDE Non-Linear Video Editor. It works on GNU/Linux, Windows and BSD. Through the MLT framework, Kdenlive integrates many plugin effects for video and sound processing or creation. Furthermore Kdenlive brings a powerful titling tool, a DVD authoring (menus) solution, and can then be used as a complete studio for video creation. Kdenlive supports all of the formats supported by FFmpeg or libav (such as QuickTime, AVI, WMV, MPEG, and Flash Video, among others), and also supports 4:3 and 16:9 aspect ratios for both PAL, NTSC and various HD standards, including HDV and AVCHD. Video can also be exported to DV devices, or written to a DVD with chapters and a simple menu. Video editing features: Multi-track editing with a timeline and supports an unlimited number of video and audio tracks. A built-in title editor and tools to create, move, crop and delete video clips, audio clips, text clips and image clips. Ability to add custom effects and transitions. A wide range of effects and transitions. Audio signal processing capabilities include normalization, phase and pitch shifting, limiting, volume adjustment, reverb and equalization filters as well as others. Visual effects include options for masking, blue-screen, distortions, rotations, colour tools, blurring, obscuring and others. Configurable keyboard shortcuts and interface layouts. Rendering is done using a separate non-blocking process so it can be stopped, paused and restarted. Kdenlive also provides a script called the Kdenlive Builder Wizard (KBW) that compiles the latest developer version of the software and its main dependencies from source, to allow users to try to test new features and report problems on the bug tracker. Project files are stored in XML format. An archiving feature allows exporting a project among all assets into a single folder or compressed archive. Built-in audio mixer Kdenlive 26.04.2 changelog: Remove not needed actions from render info, fix rough size calculation for rendering. Fix clip sometimes not inserted in timeline when moving vertically in bin drag. Fix transcoding from clip properties. Cleanup render profile audio quality. Use percent based value for audio quality, and adjust the range accordingly per codec. Fixes bug #520750 Enforce even numbers for render width/height. Fixes bug #520737 Fix nightly flatpak - disable rnnoise until implemented. Fix missing initialization. Edit mediacapture.cpp. Fix document unnecessarily marked as modified on opening, triggering a backup request. Fix incorrect detection of missing and remote clips causing unwanted backups. Fixes issue #2194 Fix tests. Fix tmp files copied to wrong location when setting project folder. Fixes bug #467740 Fix color clips not selected on creation. Use QFileInfo instead of QUrl/QDir to try fixing Windows shared drives. Fixes bug #451413 Fix timeline preview incorrectly invalidated when a track with effect duration changed. Fixes bug #514541 Fix missing var. Display paths in native format in render widget. Fixes bug #520428 Simple splash: fix pressing return always triggered the same button. Minor update to simple splash. Fix unwanted clips added to timeline and cleanup. Fixes issue #2190 Minor layout improvements to welcome screen, add Quit and Open shortcuts. Fix broken welcome dialog layout in tiling compositors. (craft) Limit the number of CPU cores used during a Windows build with mingw as some .cpp files are memory intensive to build. (kde-ci) Limit the number of CPU cores used during a build as some .cpp files are memory intensive to build. (kde-ci) Cleanup old entries. Another fix for animation crash. Fix uninitialized function - crash on create animation. Another attempt to fix MacOS permissions. MacOS: fix bundle release version. Fix MacOS plist path. Fix MacOS build. Explicitely link against Qt::Core. Download: Kdenlive 26.04.2 | 128.0 MB (Open Source) Download: Standalone Executable View: Kdenlive Home page Get alerted to all of our Software updates on Twitter at @NeowinSoftware
    • Here's how to watch the Xbox Games Showcase today and what to expect by Pulasthi Ariyasinghe The June games showcase week has been a packed one, with everything from major presentations like Sony and Summer Game Fest to indie-focused reveals coming in almost every day. Now, it's almost time for another big one, with Microsoft bringing its Xbox Games Showcase back later today. This is a double feature too, with a Gears of War E-Day deep dive also being attached to it. For anyone wanting to tune in online, the 2026 Xbox Games Showcase is kicking off at 10 AM PT | 1 PM ET | 6 PM BST | 7 PM CEST later today, June 7. The event will be available to watch on the official Xbox YouTube (4K 60FPS), Twitch, Facebook, Steam, Amazon Live, and other portals. Separate livestreams for American Sign Language and Audio Description will also be available. "This year marks 25 years of XBOX, and this Showcase is poised to be a true celebration, offering world premieres, new gameplay, fresh updates, and more for a swathe of projects we cannot wait to share," said Microsoft about this presentation. With a new CEO behind it that is pulling off some interesting moves, Xbox may have some surprises to reveal today. New looks at first-party games like Halo Campaign Evolved from Halo studios, Fable from Playground Games, InXile Entertainment's Clockwork Revolution, Mojang's Minecraft Dungeons II, and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 from Infinity Ward are to be expected here. We may finally get to see the new Blade from Arcane Studios in action and a new Persona game from Atlus at the showcase too. Surprise announcements may also arrive from other Microsoft-owned studios like Bethesda, MachineGames, Ninja Theory, Obsidian, Rare, World's Edge, or Blizzard. Considering how every new release nowadays is staying away from November and December to avoid Grand Theft Auto VI's release, any launch dates Microsoft announces will probably skip those months as well. Once the Xbox Games Showcase ends, Microsoft will immediately kick off the Gears of War: E-Day Direct. This deep dive into the upcoming prequel from The Coalition should attach gameplay footage and perhaps a release window to the highly anticipated project.
    • People in the '50s and '60s had the same attitude, and we're still here over a half century later.
    • So after some fiddling I was able to get it to run at a pretty stable 30FPS. I'm slightly surprised about how much fiddling I had to do to get there though given what I thought was reasonable hardware: Processors: 16 × AMD Ryzen 7 7840HS w/ Radeon 780M Graphics Memory: 16 GiB of RAM Graphics Processor 1: AMD Radeon 780M Graphics Graphics Processor 2: AMD Radeon RX 7700S I think I could do it better if I use Linux rather than Windows, Windows RAM usage is stupid without stripping the system down. But once I got it working in a reasonable state, it was so awesome! I felt like a new Bond! If anyone has any advice to get things going a bit smoother FPS-wise, I'd appreciate it.
    • Something is rotten in the state of Denmark Australia
  • Recent Achievements

    • Dedicated
      Mark Spruce earned a badge
      Dedicated
    • Collaborator
      conkir earned a badge
      Collaborator
    • Rising Star
      olavinto went up a rank
      Rising Star
    • One Month Later
      lamborghiniv10 earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • Week One Done
      lamborghiniv10 earned a badge
      Week One Done
  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      482
    2. 2
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      256
    3. 3
      Steven P.
      74
    4. 4
      +Edouard
      70
    5. 5
      FloatingFatMan
      69
  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!